Conversation With a Blank Page

My friend, this is it. The day we finally write something worth reading. Today. This. very. day.

I know I said that yesterday and the day before and possibly the day before that, but this time I really mean it. Just give it a couple of hours and we’ll actually complete something! I won’t even put it off till later and leave you waiting like I did last time … but let’s not talk about old unfinished things, the past is dead and gone. This is the present we’re talking about! And there’s no time like the present, we both know that. So just let me brew a pot of tea and I’ll be right with you.

You and I are going to do great things once I can get a rough idea of what we’ll write today. Some people plot their stories, you know, type them all out nice and fancy to some set rule and plan their protagonists and antagonists and everything so that they can claim they worked on character development and such, but we don’t need that kind of posh rubbish, we just create a loose plot and go with the flow, eh? Well, anyway, I had this great idea for a novel - where’s my mug? - and it’s about this girl who works at a cafe. She needs a backstory, right, to make her interesting and to sort of lay a foundation for personal development; that kind of thing is important. So we can begin with the typical car accident where her parents or boyfriend die or some such and expand on it later, make it a bit more unique. What, you don’t like it? Stop looking at me like that. I know it doesn’t sound very original yet but there’ll be a twist, I just have to do some more brainstorming, okay? I’ll think of something eventually, I promise. For now I just want to make a start. I said, don’t look at me like that! I’m doing all the work here, you don’t even offer any suggestions. But let's get back to it. So basically she’s ... what’s the word ... oh, scarred. That’ll look good on the back cover synopsis, see. We could even use it as the title. It’s an impressive word so it’d stand out and hook potential readers. Scarred. Definitely using that. We’re really onto something here. So, Protagonist, let’s just call her Alice - actually, we’ll change it up a bit to become Alyce, that’s more unique - meets this guy named Dominic - pretty slick name, huh - in the park one day when she’s sitting down at her lunch break. Dominic is this French guy ... no, no, too cliche, make him Romanian ... with deep blue eyes and black hair and a long scar running down his left cheek, and he’s part of an organisation that kidnaps girls like Alyce for whatever reason, we’ll figure out that angle further along; remember, we’re still at the beginning. But before he kidnaps her he has to lead her into it, can’t just grab her and throw her into his car like they do in way too many movies. He has to befriend her first. And on a side note, she’s super pretty, okay. She’s not really aware of it because of her insecurities due to being traumatised. See, we’re really getting into the zone here! You feeling me? Seeing where this is heading? Yeah? No? Oh. I get it. I get it. You’re not going to be responsive today. Okay ... that’s not a problem, I’ve exhausted my mental energy anyway. You know what? I’m just going to leave it. We’re both tired. I’ll sleep on it and in the morning I’ll have thought of a more detailed plot, it doesn’t have to involve a car accident if you don’t like that idea, I just thought it would help to give our character a difficult backstory and improve her whole personal development thing. And the organisation might not work because, to be frank, I don’t know much about organisations like that and how they operate and all the technical stuff. I do like the black haired, blue eyed Romanian thing, though.

Anyway, we’ll get back to this. I tell you, tomorrow is the day we write something really good.